


Keep your friends close and your enemies closer

by BeaDeM0



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: Angry Sex, Antagonism, But man, F/M, Scars, Severe lack of communication, They are so drawn to one another, Trauma for them both, Unprotected Sex, messy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-12-27 03:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaDeM0/pseuds/BeaDeM0
Summary: Rio's POV, post-season 2... Rio comes back, they both have to deal with one another... emotions boil over & messiness ensues.** Updated chapter 1 to make Rhea more character compliant **...& then somehow, a Beth chapter appeared with less angst.





	1. Enemies & Intimacies

He’d been hell bent on revenge whilst recovering. 

He was going to fuck with her head for a while first though and he did, toyed and taunted before he’d turned up to the business she’d started. It was some ridiculous middle class shit. 

Courses for people with surplus cash in the evenings and on weekends. No discounts for paying in cash of course, payment had to come electronically but you got to learn how to bake the intricate as fuck cupcakes that Elizabeth did so well. Learn the basics of patchwork. Decoupage the shit out of that ugly ass same as everyone one else furniture you got from ‘Bed, Bath and Beyond’. 

Come back weekly for a stitch & bitch group & supplies. Learn a new skill, master a craft to show off to your other boring AF PTA bitches as well as maybe buy some across the border uppers and downers and tranquilliser shit. Yeh, he’d heard all about the shit-storm that was her sister and her trying to be professional across the boarder with his contacts. I mean everyone already knew Beth’s name as he used it for the old deals... so yeh, he knew all about her dealings. 

And he knew she was trying to keep her sister and her friend legit through the workspace, provide real jobs as during the day the space they used was like a workshop or office for women and those who didn’t conform, for all of them to work and hold meetings and not do that stuff from home. It was a place they could bring their kids, a safe space for all. So long as no one knew about the drugs and fake cash.

Elizabeth thought she’d been invisible, thought she was incognito in her safe space but he’d still been watching her. He was almost proud. She’d learnt to hide what she did so much better.

She’d hired that workshop with the kitchen for her legitimate business, but the kitchen was great to also cook her smaller amounts of cash. And she used that same kitchen for another purpose too, letting it out to the college kid, that one from the supermarket, so he could use it on the occasional overnight to cook some chemicals of which she skimmed a share of his profits. 

So, Rio had demanded his share of that as well as everything else. She couldn’t deny him and she knew it. 

She’d first tried to take the King down and failed. Second attempt she’d tried to take his life but failed. There weren’t gonna be a third time. 

He let her know that. 

Let her know that trying to take him away from his kid meant that she was now marked. Anything happened to him and he wouldn’t shoot her lame-ass ex, cause yeh, after bossing up she’d actually grabbed herself by her lady balls and kicked the man-child trip out after he’d pulled another stunt on her (how many times did the lame-ass husband have to fuck-up for her to wake the hell up, man she weren’t ever that patient with him). If she went for Rio again, he had it arranged that her sister and friend were handled. Fo’real. No play this time.

She knew he meant it. 

And so she attended the meetings he assigned her, paying him all the cash, telling him reluctantly about what was coming up. She hadn’t wanted to agree and stood him up once so he turned up to two of her events the next day and was a dick. He made innuendos about what she was really like, flirted outrageously with some of the women who were looking for extra marital attention and were pleased to find it at a decorative cookie icing workshop. 

His behaviour really riled her but she had to curtail her anger, be all sweetness and light to him as she couldn’t push it. She had no choice but to do what he asked. She hated it, he could see that, but she loved it in some way too, he could feel that in the way she’d spar with him, or would listen to his occasional pearls of wisdom. 

She took what he said on-board, and couldn’t help her obvious glow when he accidentally paid her a very rare compliment.

And then one late meeting, when he’d made her wait for an hour at her workshop, a good two hours after her whatever class was done, she’d lost it with him. She hadn’t really lost her shit with him since he surprised her at the grocery store cashier queue, alive and well and staring at her coldly. Yeh, so he came back from the dead alright... she gawped and spluttered and ran from that store throwing up in the parking lot. And he’d laughed. He followed her for a few days after that until she spoke to him and he let her know he knew everything and wanted his share and some payback.

Since then he’d been very purposefully verbally and emotionally pushing and prodding her into losing her shit. He knew he just had to wait for her to explode, and it was his tardiness that produced the avalanche when he eventually showed up. 

Her eyes flashed as she yelled at him:

What did he want from her? 

Why make her wait all the time? 

Why insist on taking all that he could from her? 

Why not just kill her now and take all the cash she had?

Why bother wasting his and her time by doing this juvenile shit? 

He had laughed at her then, asking her how painful was he making her life for her?

She replied torturous. He said that wasn’t enough suffering for him. 

So she told him that she had been tortured enough by what she did. She had to live with knowing what she had turned into everyday. 

She was a killer. She shot a man. 

And not just any man. 

She shot the one person who’d given her more confidence than anyone else had. The one person who challenged, frustrated and encouraged her more than anyone else ever had.  
The one person who saw more in her than anyone else had. The one person who let her see her own potential, who helped set her free.

The one person who’d sexually satisfied her in a way no one else ever had. 

A person she hated and wanted. 

The first bullet had been an exasperated accident but the look on his face told her that she was dead if she stopped with that one shot, so she shot again and again to end it. Just like he’d told her to.

And so that night, after she had been kidnapped, she ended what she had started the year before in her kitchen when she’d asked him for a job. She started it and she ended it. Just like he had wanted her to, to finish a job properly.

She killed him to not be killed. But it hadn’t worked, as something had died in her that night & someone else was born in her place.

He clapped his hands at her, at her performance, laughing at what she said and laughing at her guilt. Laughing at her lack of knowledge. Her lack of power. Her trying be a boss but still having to cow down to him cause she hadn’t actually handled her shit. She never handled her shit. 

She had to learn to see everything through to the final end. He was going to teach her this, her final lesson before he destroyed her. 

In the weeks that followed her shooting him, when he was recovering, he still had cameras in his old apartment, sensor cameras that filmed everything. He’d seen her break in at night and during the day, he’d seen her sit by the spot that he’d fallen down, where he lay dying, where she thought he had died and that first visit, she had sat there and touched the ground and sobbed. 

For an hour the cold and ungrateful bitch actually sat and sobbed. 

The next time she came she lay down on that spot and sobbed. She did this, visited the empty apartment for three weeks until the folks he’d rented it to moved in & then she stuck to sitting in one of the chairs he’d dumped in the storage units. Cause yeah, he had sensor & sound cameras there, of course he did, with that amount of cash & all his shit... she still really needed to work on noticing things. 

But it was funny how without knowing it, she chose his favourite chair to sit in. He had more than one of course, Eames recliners weren’t cheap but neither was he. But he watched the footage of her, where she would just sit, silently for thirty minutes or so, sometimes she had a little miniature bottle on her & she would down it, sometimes she cried silently almost without seeming to realise it and sometimes she just sat. Held onto the chair.

So he knew despite the building of her business and the bossing up and her saying all this shit to him about ending it or killing or her that he was the best sex she’d ever had (thanks, he'd take that but she was fucking married for 20 years, damn, her husband really was a trip); but he already knew she wasn’t okay with killing him. He knew that she wasn’t handling life without him as easily as she probably thought she would. 

He however, he hated her. He always would.

But he could at least admit to himself that a part of him actually missed what they had. 

Missed their interactions. The way she saw different opportunities that he could then utilise and expand upon. Because there was something that drew him to her. He fed off her ideas like she fed off his. They fed off each others dynamic. 

It was, well, it was what it was. 

So yeah, as she told him of her guilt and pain he laughed at her, told her she was a cold hearted power-hungry bitch and they both knew it. 

Her face showed 101 emotions but all she said to him, angrily was. ‘Don’t call me a bitch.’

He walked into her space then, so that their chests were touching, hers soft, full and heavy against this hard and lean pecs, his face barely an inch from hers as he spoke softly, eyes boring into hers. ‘Bitch.’

Her eyes flashed and she shoved him without thinking, shoved his shoulder, near where she shot him but the second she made physical contact she regretted it, her eyes went wide but her pupils shrank as he stepped back to accommodate the impact of the push. 

He saw her horror at what she’d done, touching him angrily, being violent towards him yet again, saw it register within her. He saw the fear cross her face, the fear of what he would now do to make her pay for it. 

He didn’t react for a few seconds and she opened her mouth to apologise, but the words didn’t come out as he stepped into her space again, walking her back against her workshop bench, continuing to push her back with his body till she sat against it. 

And it was all quick from there, her pulling him against her body, reaching for him desperately, her hands reaching for his neck to kiss him in apology but he moved his face away from her lips, letting her have his neck instead as he grasped onto her waist. She made no comment on his refusal of the kiss but moved her hands to pull the skirt of her dress up before he moved his to undo his belt buckle. 

He kissed at her neck, biting her earlobes, letting her pull him close again before she undid his pants and freed him, stroking him firmly and gasping at his hardness and heat as she caressed him. It made him groan. He ripped her panties down and pulled her ass to the edge of the bench-top as he lined up, rock hard already just as she was drenched for him and he pushed in making her inhale deeply. 

He pushed hard at her at first, but then he moved more slowly, more gently, pushing in and out until she wasn’t as tight at his invasion of her body, till she accepted more of him, all of him. She moaned at the pleasure of him inside her again, relaxing into his thrusts, moving her hips with him, opening up more to him and fuck... it was still beyond good. 

How the fuck could it be this good with her? 

They both gasped and pushed and pulled, clawing at each other, trying to consume each other as well be consumed. It wasn’t sweet, slow or loving and languid, it was wound up, pent up energy and fast and hard again and what they both needed. 

He shouldn’t have cared about her pleasure but he made sure she received hers before he took his, coming deep and relentlessly inside of her, raw. He waited a minute after his high before pulling out his softening dick as she took a sharp inhale at his movement. He pulled his shorts up, tucking them into his jeans, redoing zips, buttons and buckles, not even speaking to her or looking back at her as he walked away, taking the cash she owed him. 

Because looking at her or speaking to her would have been too much.

He saw her three days later and acted like nothing had happened, treated her like she was nothing to him and she went along with it but at their next meeting, two days later, when he made her meet him at a fancy event held at a hotel where he was suited up, and he made her wait on a mezzanine level lobby for thirty minutes, she called him an asshole. 

She tried to storm off but he’d grabbed her, roughly, pulling her to a side meeting room with glass windows which overlooked the party and as soon as the door shut, she roughly grabbed her arm from him, went back to lock the door and then, well.

It went down just as fast as before. 

She backed up against the glass and he followed as she turned, and soon enough her legs were spread and she had leaned her weight on her hands against the glass. Her ass was pushed out against him as one of his arms hooked around her waist holding her in place so his free hand could pleasure her after pushing her panties down by teasing her clit from the front, and he whispered in her ear about what he was doing to her above everyone and how if anyone actually looked up they would see them. 

She had tried to pull away but he held her tight, laughing, telling her the windows were tinted but imagine if they weren’t? Imagine if some of the fancy fuckers below could see them, could see her all hot and flushed, her pupils blown like his, see the concentration on his face from trying not to come and the sweat at his temple as he fucked into her? If they could smell and feel the heat of them fucking in this small room and she moaned low and repeatedly clenched her pussy muscles around him tight until they both came.

He could be extra theatrical when he wanted but whatever as they both enjoyed it.

And so it went on, for weeks, they played around each other, making sure that several of their weekly meetings included an argument of some sort so that they would get heated and end up getting too close to one another. End up working mutually intense orgasms out of each other, either at her workshop, or in her car or his, once in the cloakroom of a restaurant he would no longer go to and more often than not, the lockup up. He made sure to delete all footage of their lock-up hook ups though he still kept the cameras on. 

Wouldn’t do to not keep his eye on her. 

And then there was that day when he was due at the Birthday party Rhea was holding for Marcus. They took it in turns to hold it each year. Beth had been invited, of course, because Rhea stupidly liked her as she still didn’t know that Beth had gotten closer to her to alleviate her guilt at nearly killing her ex, for nearly killing her baby daddy. 

Rio had heard Rio talking about her new friend Beth, she shared a tale or two of woe about her lame ass husband who cheated on her and the man who she had fallen for but only he’d turned out to be using her too, because he actually only wanted her for her business and Rhea had sympathised with her struggles. 

Rhea had no doubt painted Rio as the incredibly secretive workaholic ex who had never been around when she needed him, conveniently forgetting he’d tried to hire a nanny after the first few weeks, one that would stay in the apartment they shared but Rhea had not been down with that. When they split, Rhea thought he’d turned into this footloose, high-flying bachelor with a pad to match and that he’d moved onto a more disposable side piece real quick. 

Truth is he hadn’t moved on real quick, he had trusted Rhea as much as he could trust another person but she couldn’t believe that was the truth. She wouldn’t believe it, no matter what he said and they had clashed over his work life. What she didn’t get involved with but was aware of before Marcus was born became an issue for her. 

And all those that eventually came after Rhea where just a distraction from his real life, light fun, he didn’t let anyone get close. He kind of surprised himself when he let the sparks from the tension of the work he did with Elizabeth spill over in to real life, when she caved into his prolonged campaign of flirting and encouragement. But, regardless of that, he could now admit that his behaviour at the time of his split with Rhea had at times dick-ish but he hadn’t moved on as she thought he had, he just let her think what she wanted to. 

Beth of course didn’t know Rhea had mentioned her, and had only gone to the party believing Rio was away in Canada on business. Her face had contorted when she saw him at the party, trying to keep her cool as she tried desperately to avoid him. 

Rio of course knew that she hadn’t told Rhea shit and he’d let her get away with that for a while, but her getting close to Rhea was sick. Elizabeth needed psychological help. He’d have totally done the same thing in the situation so he couldn’t fault her for it, though as it affected him he was pissed about it. He’d let it be though as Marcus loved the younger Bolands and he liked watching Elizabeth squirm.

But when Rhea saw him approach Elizabeth, when she saw Beth look up at Rio in both trepidation but also, she noted Beth’s slight pout, the colour rising in her cheeks, the eye contact they shared when they thought no one was paying them attention. The game was up. 

Rhea marched up to them, sharply asked Elizabeth to help serve the food and cornered Rio, berating him, asking him what exact involvement he’d had with her friend ‘Beth’. He’d laughed and said he’d worked with her a while back, that Rhea knew he worked with white middle class housewives before as they were invisible but Rhea’s eyes flashed putting two and two together.

‘Was she the one that put you away that time, when you said it wasn't actually done by anyone serious?’

Rio looked at Rhea cooly. Rio had also never fully explained that shit show to Rhea and he sure as hell hadn’t explained the night of him being shot by Elizabeth of all people to anyone, and he wasn’t about to either. Not with him still being in-debted to a crooked FBI agent. Nope, some things you kept quiet.

He shook his head at her.

‘Well, something’s going on though, I know it. You’ve fucked her, haven’t you? I mean, you used to love a good sized pair of natural tits, you were once obsessed with mine and,’ Rhea pointed in Beth’s direction. ‘Let’s be honest, hers can’t be beat.’

Rio kept his eyes on Rhea, he maintained his calm but he stood closer to her, his brow furrowed, letting her know he wasn’t impressed. ‘Really, you’re reducing other women, your new friend, to just bein' body parts?’

Rhea folded her arms and stared at him, waiting for his answer. 

He shrugged. ’I still like big an' natural tits Rhea, but I don’t fuck my employees.’

Rhea looked away from him for a moment, turning her head back and shaking it at him. ‘You know one of the problems I always had with you is that you would tell a truth or two together but the thing is, they weren’t always related. So you like natural tits and you don’t sleep with your employees but you’ll sleep with a colleague, right? I know she’s got her own business, so you no you no longer employ her, so she’s actually a colleague, and colleagues are fuckable, right? So she’s not been honest to me since the day I met her, she said she didn’t know you, but she did and intimately, apparently. You too are both equally manipulative.’ 

‘Rhea, let’s just enjoy Marcus’ party, yeh, that’s all we’re here to do. This ain’t about you or me.’

‘Or her, my recent ex-new-friend.’

Rio said nothing and Rhea turned from him angrily, looking for Beth and finding Beth helping to plate the food up. Rhea caught her eye, giving her a look of utter disappointment. Beth looked slightly bewildered, and tried to catch Rio’s eye but weakly, he didn’t look back. 

He kept his distance from her for the rest of the party, he knew Rhea would dump her as a friend. Rhea hated any form of dishonestly. He knew he should be happy with this turn of events, but it didn’t make him feel that good to be honest.

It also didn’t sit well that Rhea still knew him well enough to know that he would be into Elizabeth and it didn’t sit well for him that both of them would be now be disappointed as they had lost a friendship. Rhea didn’t let people in quickly or deep, she was cautious, she’d had to be when she was with him, her cautious nature and the lack of lots of close friends appealed when he first met her as he knew she’d keep secrets. She was a private person, just like Elizabeth. But he knew that the friendship was Elizabeths’ wrongdoing and she’d have to find her own way to make it up to Rhea. Him fucking Elizabeth had nothing to do with anything or anybody.

But he found out it did, as the next day, when he was expecting to have Beth wrapped around his dick at the end of their meeting, when he was ready for one of those deep and intense orgasms sex with her always gave him, the ones he had now gotten very used too, because coming with Elizabeth was immensely satisfying though he’d never admit to seeking her out... However, instead of her welcoming him, he got her being distant with him. 

She didn’t look at him properly, she didn’t react to his jibes. She barely spoke and the woman was a talker. She never shut the fuck up.

And she was wearing belted and tight jeans. She rarely ever wore tight jeans when they were meeting alone, too tricky to hurriedly pull off and on over her hips and ass and thighs. When he got all into her space, she still wouldn’t look properly at him, she just squirmed away from him, squeaking that the cash was all there and she had to go because Annie was sitting her kids.

He nodded, understanding but it didn’t sit right. He texted her later and she responded politely and quickly but still... 

So the next night, still horny despite his own hand relief, and still 100% in denial that it was her rather than just the orgasms with her that he wanted, he went to her place. Walked round the back for old times sake. Wasn’t sure if he would walk in as it was after the kids bed-time or if he’d wait outside on her bench and message her, but she was sat outside already, on the steps, a blanket on her shoulders, a nearly done glass of bourbon in her hands.

She looked unhappy. More than he’d been used to seeing. She tried to hide it when she saw him, swallowing and looking up, trying to be as expressionless as possible. She was getting better at it to be fair. 

He sat down next to her and held his hand out. She handed him the glass and he took a small sip.

‘So what’s goin’ on Elizabeth.’

‘You’re Rhea’s secretive ex.’

‘Yeh. You knew that. Weird to pursue a friendship with my ex, don’t cha think?’

‘You told her about us?’

Rio just looked at her.

Beth swallowed. ‘About us working together.’

‘She ain’t dumb, she worked it all out.’

‘You didn’t have to tell her.’

‘You didn’t have to befriend my ex.’

‘But you were dead and I felt...’ Beth stopped herself, swallowed, trying to reign herself in, ‘Jesus Rio, my kids love Marcus! They like her and I really like her and how can I still be her friend now? Especially now she knows. The way she looked at me when I left the party. She hasn’t responded to my messages since then. How soon will it be before she works things out? About what I did to you all? She’ll hate me and I deserve it.’

Rio said nothing so she did what she always did, steam-rolled on with her mouth.

‘She would never be friends with me if she really knew what I did and I can’t blame her. After what I put all of you through? What Marcus and Rhea have had to go through. And you. What I did...’ She faltered again, swallowing. ‘I just, I just can’t.’

Rio shrugged. ‘Yeh, like I said, you gonna have to deal with your guilt. Bosses don't do guilt’

Beth ignored him and went on. ‘We’re going to have to stop sleeping with each other.’ 

Rio stared at her hard then. ‘Why?’

Beth slowly turned, looking back at him. ‘Because I can’t be friends with her and work with you and sleep with you! I shot you!’

‘Yeh, an'? Hasn’t stopped you these past few weeks.’

‘Rio! Don’t you think there’s something wrong with us? That what we’re doing with each other isn’t right?’

Rio shrugged, not breaking their eye contact. ‘Depends on how you defining right, I mean you nearly killed me so, I shouldn’t tap it, but us fucking, y’know...’ He let himself lean closer to her, his voice dropping an octave to a drawl. ‘It feels like we puttin' all those wrongs right.’

Beth swallowed, looking away but she eventually nodded gently. 

Because there was no denying to him about how good it felt to her. How right everything felt when he was inside her. Why she kept on meeting him, antagonising him, letting him antagonise her. She couldn’t deny what he did to her. She couldn’t hide her body’s very obvious reaction to him. 

They sat in silence for a moment, letting his words settle and both their acknowledgement of this thing between them sink in before Rio spoke up.

‘Kids all in bed?’

She turned back to him, shaking her head. ‘Dean’s got them, his mother took them to a show tonight.’

Rio stood then, looking at her before walking into her kitchen. He finished the rest of the drink before rinsing the glass out and then downing a glass of water, waiting for her to join him. 

She did of course, standing in-front of him, taking the newly filled glass of water he offered her and she drank it all. He took the glass back off her and put it on the counter. 

He then stepped into her space, brushing the hair off her face with his hand. Just like he used to. 

She closed her eyes for a moment, and swallowed before she opened her eyes up again, staring up at him, tilting her head up to meet his, she’d been waiting for this moment to come, he could feel it as he leant down a little, and their lips met for the first time since those hours they’d spent in her bedroom. They pulled away briefly before meeting lips again, quickly.

The second kiss was gentle at first, tentative, a pressing of lips, before he opened his mouth and she opened hers and their tongues, hot and needy, met and teased, tasting the remnants of bourbon, the heat and desire as they explored each other. 

It had been so long. Beth wrapped her hands around his neck as he pulled her body against his, his arms wrapping around her waist, his hands settling firmly on her ass as her hands reached up around his neck, holding onto him, holding him in place.

They kissed for some time, bodies pressing until he pulled back a little from her, pointedly, and she took his hand and led him back to her bedroom.

She’d changed things around a bit, some the of furniture had gone, she’d replaced photos and artwork and... he didn’t give a shit really, the room didn't matter, as she pulled her sweater off and he helped her with the rest of her clothes, gently moving her to the bed. He got on his knees and gently tugged her hands, encouraging her to sit and she did. He put his hands on her shoulders, moving her gently back, till she was lying down. He pulled her ass to the edge of the bed then, and lifted her legs off the floor, putting her feet by her ass, spreading her thighs a little further apart. 

He traced his finger tips down her inner thighs, blew on the flower that had opened for him and she shuddered. He ghosted his lips over her soft lips, making her gasp and she didn’t stop gasping as he moved his lips over her mound again and again, kissing her everywhere before letting his tongue taste her, pushing inside her warm wet centre. He explored her with his tongue before letting his fingers take over to tease and fuck into her, pushing them knuckle deep inside her, seeking that little rough patch that had her squirming in no time as his tongue and thumb rubbed over her clit. 

He took his time with her, coaxing her closer and closer to her release, switching the pace and pressure of his fingers and tongue a few times to prolong the build up despite her moans and begging cries of his name that had his cock twitching. He finally gave her the pressure he knew set her off and she came languidly but deeply, moaning her little gasping moans, her thighs shaking, her hands clinging desperately to the comforter on her bed. 

He got to his feet, a little stiffly from being on his knees, not that she noticed, still affected by the orgasm he’d given her, so he took the time to slowly undress, sneakers off, socks toed off, belt loosened, zipper undone, being careful of his erection, jeans dropped, shirt unbuttoned and added to the pile of the their clothes on the floor, shorts down. 

Her eyes were wide open, watching him with her blown pupils, but now she looked deeply into his, his that hadn't left hers. He licked his lips of her come and she twitched a little. His hand went to the hem of his t-shirt and she swallowed. He pulled it off, dropping it to the floor.

He stood in-front of her, naked. Unashamed of his hard on for her. But they both knew what he wanted her to look at. 

The three fresh scars on what had been his perfect upper body. 

The three ugly raised angry red splotches, scar tissue still fresh. The ones she put on his body. Yeh, he’d been using that organic rosehip oil on them that Rhea had told him about, but they were still what they were. The bullets had done their damage, digging them out of him had pretty much done more. The scars would always be there. The marks of her on his body.

She looked at them, breathing loudly, before moved her legs back down to the floor, and she sat up on the edge of the bed. She reached for him and he moved to stand in-between her legs, his face impassive. She pulled on his hand then, pulled him onto the bed. He let himself be led, went down on his back and she followed him, lying by his side.

She looked in his eyes as she reached out to touch him, waiting for his permission and it came with a slight incline of his head. She leant on her side, partially on him and she tentatively let her fingers trace one scar after another. She traced them gently, as if trying to take away any lingering pain. His breath hitched at each touch, at her attention.

He didn’t need to tell her, perhaps she already knew, perhaps she didn’t know or understand, but he hadn't let anyone see him like this, see the scars since he left the hospital. He didn't want to show anyone his vulnerabilities just yet. She was the first. To see them. To feel them. To taste them as she leant forward letting her lips touch the puckered skin, letting her tongue slip between her lips, wetting his skin, wetting his scars as one of her hands reached for his penis and began to stroke. 

And it was weird, how somehow he’d needed her to be the one to see them before anyone else did. He’d covered them up since the shooting, wearing a t-shirt at the boxing gym, going real late or early, showering privately, concealing his body from everyone. Because he needed her to be the one to see his scared body first. He needed her acceptance of his damaged body. He need her to embrace this body she had damaged.

He had accepted the scars she gave him, he didn't choose them, he didn't want them but he accepted them and he had needed her to too. He’d been nicked with a knife years back, early on, on his upper arm and he’d put a tattoo over it, but these, these he was going to keep as they were. 

He hadn’t quite realised he had been waiting to show her what she’d done. He didn't know how she would react to them, if she’d be scared or disgusted, didn’t know how he’d feel at her reaction, but this touch, this stroking, this tasting, this was what he needed. 

Perhaps that’s why he’d allowed all this shit to continue between them because he had needed her to see what she’d done. That and the fact that fucking her felt good. 

He leant his head back in pleasure, the sensation of her giving him love bites on his scars, of her stroking his hardness as her hand was soft and not rough as he was, but still firm in grip, moving to gather pre-cum and use it to lubricate her hand movement from tip to base and back again. He moaned at the sensation, at her sucking his chest.

It was wrong. It was so fucking wrong on every single fucking level and yet here they were. 

He pulled her head up to his, pulling her into a deep and consuming kiss before taking her hand off him, moving his hands to her hips and pulling her over him, so she was astride him. He let her align them, let her rub her wetness on him briefly before sliding down on him, rocking as he almost filled her to the hilt. 

They both sighed, looking into each others eyes as he lifted his hips up, to get an extra deep stroke in and she gasped.

Their eyes never left each others as they rocked into one another. He let his hands roam all over her body, smoothing, soothing, pinching, gently pulling the hair on the nape of her neck, sitting up to suck on, nip and then sooth her nipples, as she got closer and closer to her orgasm. He moved slightly to get that angle, the angle where his dick was repeatedly hitting that spot inside her and she unravelled on him, moaning, clinging onto his shoulders, her perfect little nails digging in, her head rolling back and he spoke at her hoarsely, telling her to look at him, to keep her eyes on him and she did.

She was emotional, he could see it, could feel it from the intensity of her on-going orgasm. And he could read her, he could feel her, he knew her and it was just, intense. She was still orgasming as she leant forward, reaching for him, reaching for his lips as he punishingly held her hips, keeping her in place stopping her from moving any closer, so that he could lift her slightly, pumping into her erratically at this angle, coming hard as she gasped and held his gaze. 

It was hazy for a bit for him then, falling back, taking her with him, but when he came down enough, she was lying on her back next to him, the covers were over them and her hand was in his, her fingers were intertwined with his. Her thumb was stroking his hand. 

Another intimacy. 

Another line had been crossed between them. 

He knew he should clean up, leave her, give her a taste of her own medicine but instead he closed his eyes and fell into the deepest sleep he’d had in a long time as he lay next to her. He came to, the next day not too early as it was light out, first wondering where he was, a slight lingering trauma from waking up in the hospital. But he recalled soon enough, remembering that Marcus was with Rhea. And that Elizabeth had kissed over all his scars, sucked love bites around them and it had felt right. And it had felt right as they’d fucked on her bed, again. 

She stirred next to him, reached for him, her hands on his chest and smoothed down, stroking his skin till she reached his semi and she gripped him making him take a deep breath in. He drawled at her, his voice extra low. 

‘Sure you wanna do that? Don’t you wanna kick me out ‘bout now? Or are you waitin’ to do it after I’ve come again?’

She rolled her barely awake eyes at him and spoke, her voice still heavy with sleep. ’You know I had no choice, I had to, to get my kids back.’ 

Elizabeth scooted down under the covers when he had just looked at her blankly and she let her lips join her hand, making him groan as she licked him from tip to root. He closed his eyes this time. He closed his eyes as she took him into her mouth, shallow and then deep. She focused her mouth on the tip of his cock, letting her tongue slide back and forth over his head, swiping over his eye again and again as her hand moved tight and fast over him, just like he’d taught her to a few weeks ago. 

She'd asked him to show her how he liked to masturbate so she knew what he liked and he’d put her hand on his cock, putting his own over it. But this, her mouth kissing his cock head before her lips smoothed tight over it, following up his shaft to meet her hand, and then keeping her lips and hand together in a flowing movement, this was good. He wanted to grab her head, both to pull her back little and then also to push deep into her mouth but he didn't want to distract her, or dictate. In truth, he was just gonna allow himself to enjoy it.

So he lay back, one hand finding her shoulder and the other clenched her bedsheets, holding tight.

He’d laid in the bed with her for ten minutes after he came, tracing patterns onto her side with his finger tips as she lay pressed against him. He was a little too wiped to pleasure her just yet, needed a bit of time, cos it had been intense with her, it always was with her, it felt so fucking extra with her, everything was just extra with her, but his cell rang with a call he had to take, which meant he had to leave. He showered and when he stepped into her kitchen, dressed in last nights clothes, Elizabeth had made him coffee and scrambled eggs and she looked at him nervously, not sure how he would take her making him breakfast. He gave a smile, a genuine one and sat on one of the stools, letting her push the plate of eggs and the coffee across to him. He drank and ate appreciatively, but quickly, the eggs were perfect and the coffee hot and rich. 

When he stood to leave, he walked around her kitchen island to her, kissing her deeply and not that he’d ever admit it to anyone, he had left with a spring in his step.

He had Marcus the next few nights just as she had her kids, so evening drops and assignations were out, but she was on his mind. The regular orgasm trade thing they’d gotten into was kind of addictive and made worse by their obvious connection combined with he headiness of his hate, her anger, her guilt, their mutual work, their attraction to each other because of their mutual work, their antagonism which led to their in explicitly good sex. They were so interconnected yet so separate, so tied together yet so far apart. 

He turned up at hers unannounced two mornings after he had stayed the night, reaching hers after the school drop off. He had picked her up off the kitchen stool she was sat on staring at her laptop, biting her lip as she looked at some of her workshops programmes, and despite one half-hearted protest, he dumped her feet on the floor and dragged her by her hand to her bedroom. He worked two orgasms out of her with his cock deep inside her and his thumb rubbing on her clit as she squeezed tight around him, her hand wrapped around the back of his neck, pulling him to her, kissing him deeply as she made her little satisfied noises. 

She couldn’t stop kissing him that time and he guessed she was playing catch up after him not letting her kiss his mouth. She had also licked and sucked his wounds again, which, well, it really worked for him, which made him curious about himself. The human psyche was so very weird. Or maybe their, whatever it was, was just so, so messy that what should be wrong was right and what was right, well, that kind of wasn't right anymore.

He’d always blurred the lines though, and the second she robbed the store, she blurred the lines too, only up to the point she shot him, she was still in denial about it.

But for the next two weeks, he went to hers on the regular to fuck her, although he knew it was more than that, it had turned into fucking her with feeling, either during the school day when they each had their kids, or he would stay overnight when they kids were gone and she would cook him breakfast the next day and they would read bits of newspaper to each other, or talk about their kids. He was aware that at some point she might expect to head to his but he wasn't offering and she wasn’t asking. 

For now, they were just doing what they were doing, having crossed a line into deeper intimacy. Unspoken, untrusting but deeper all the same.

But on a Tuesday evening, he walked into the diner, having taken a minute to compose himself before entering as he had been thinking about a conversation they had had weeks previously, before Marcus’ Birthday when they were putting themselves back together in the lock up. Prior to fucking, she’d asked him if he was going to take some of his things away and he’d rolled her eyes, telling her he’d paid for two years so he could keep what the fuck her wanted in there. She’d bitten back, saying it was in her name, so therefore everything in there was hers. He’d quipped back about the millions in illegal cash that would send her down for life and she’d opened her mouth to argue but he’d pulled her to him and lifted up the hem of her dress and she’d been distracted. 

So after, she’d hesitated before she asked him, but they’d spent 30 minutes fucking and he’d ended up finishing in her mouth which somehow meant she was feeling a little more bold than usual. 

‘Why didn’t Turner turn you in?’

Rio had frowned at her, not wanting to answer but she’d just looked at him. It had obviously been on her mind, and so he shrugged, decided to give her something. 

‘He’s bent, isn’t he? So I paid him off.’

‘Oh.’ Beth had bitten her lip in thought but said nothing else to him and never raised the subject again. Just as he hadn’t.

He thought about that as he walked up to the booth and slid in to face the man in question. They were supposed to meet every two weeks but it had been about six. He had Marcus and then Turner had backed out. Rio had been glad of the respite not wanting to share anything in particular or at all.

Turner eyed him cooly and he eyed Turner cooly back. He ordered an orange juice watching Turner sip his coffee and answered the questions he needed to tersely. Until of course Turner got that look which meant he was going to drop something on Rio. The look that said he had the upper hand.

‘So for someone who’s helping me take this woman and her friends down, you’re compromising yourself a little aren’t you?’

Rio just looked at Turner and shrugged questioningly, acting like he didn't know what he was referring to.

Turner smiled at Rio then. ‘I’ve got footage of you coming out of her house in the morning, after spending the night.’

‘And?’ Rio looked at Turner like her was an alien, not sure of what the problem was.

‘You’re screwing her when you’re in the process of setting her up? I mean, it’s a brave move, seeing as she basically killed you. And man, you must both share some kind of weird kink to be into participating in special time with each other. I mean you and her, a gangbanger and an uptight housewife, you’re not exactly a good match, especially as you trained her and she shot you. Isn’t all that one-on-one time going to compromise this situation we’re trying to pull off?’

‘How am I compromising myself?’

‘Mixing business with pleasure? You’re meant to be leading us to her, making a deal with one of your old contacts whilst they smuggle their drugs and weapons through her workshop, not to mention her passing on counterfeit goods, making her own counterfeit money. I want to take two crews with one stone.’

‘Yeh, and?’

‘Well, nothing’s moving fast right now.’

‘Like I told you, it’s on the cards, the notion of it has been placed but the idea has to come from her an’ him. I ain’t compromising myself for them or you.’

‘You’re fucking her and you’re fucking with me.’

Rio laughed and looked away, taking a sip of his orange juice, before turning back to look at Turner, smiling at him. ‘Well, you’re an educated man an’ all, so you know what Sun Tzu said, or maybe you’d get what Michael Corleone repeated in ‘The Godfather’?’ Rio’s smirk grew at Turner who looked at him blankly, ‘It was, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer’. I’m just covering my back here, like you covering yours. Now, I passed over the last few weeks info an’ I’ll be back again in two weeks an’ things will progress, but you gotta have patience. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got somewhere else to be.’

Rio slid from the booth and out of the diner, feeling Turners eyes on his back. 

He drove straight to Elizabeth’s not caring if Turner was following him or not. He knew he’d been watched a few times, even though Turner was better at being discreet than Elizabeth was, but it was what it was. So long as nothing criminal could lead back to him, so long as there was legitimate online filing everywhere, so long as he recorded all his conversations with Turner, he knew he could keep clean.

But he had to admit that Turner had a point. Him and Beth what they were doing together was, well, weird. 

Rio didn’t take himself for a man with a kink, but then there was nothing about his dealings with Elizabeth that hadn’t had some kind of element to kink to them. He smiled at himself as he eventually pulled up and parked in her driveway, not caring who could see.

He went around the back, she kept the front door locked and chained and she even had a little camera on it now, the back also had a camera but that’s how he aways came in. He knew where the hidden key was and he let himself in, pocketing the key and locking the door behind him.

He walked silently to her couch were she was sat, cross legged, with a blanket on her lap that she was hand-sewing.

‘You gonna damage your eyesight in this light.’ He spoke in his low husky drawl but it still made her jump and clutch at her chest as she stared at him in shock.

‘Rio!’

’S’my name, don’t wear it out.’

Beth frowned at him. ‘But is it your name?’

He just grinned at her as he stood in front of her, his legs touching the couch, his crotch in direct line with her face not that she had noticed yet, her eyes were locked on his.

‘I thought you had a meeting?’

He shrugged. ’I did.’

She moved her sewing to one side and looked up at him expectantly. ‘You going sit down?’

‘You need to get something from my left pocket first.’

She sat forward a little, moving her legs apart, setting her feet either side of his and she looked at his pocket, reaching out, but then she realised she was basically reaching for his crotch, and she hesitated, unsure if this was a new mating ritual she had no idea about and her cheeks instantly reddened. 

She looked up at him swallowing. ‘Rio?’

He smirked at her. ‘Check it out.’

‘I have checked it out, quite a few times.’

‘My pocket?’

‘That’s an, an usual nickname for your...’ She let her voice trail off and looked to the side and he couldn't help but laugh at her. How she could still be so prim when they’d had each other every single way they’d wanted? When they’d continuously fucked in public spaces? When she’d come on his face?

He bit his lip and spoke low. ’Elizabeth, the pocket.’

She looked at him sighing but she licked her lips and moved her hand slowly into his pocket, brushing against him with the side of her hand. He made a slight groaning noise on purpose so she stopped moving her hand.

‘Ah, no, don’t do that, you gotta go right to the bottom of the pocket, sweetheart.’

She tilted her head to the side and continued moving her hand, brushing against his penis as she moved deeper in and he couldn’t help but twitch at her touch. She didn’t stop moving her hand till she felt the tissue paper. She pulled the paper out looking up at him unsure. It was plain white paper, folded over and over again.

He nodded at her, telling her to open it with his eyes, so she looked at the little packet and opened it, looking curiously at the gold necklace before her face shone with a warm and natural smile.

‘You fixed it.’

They’d been in the lock up sorting through a delivery of goods he’d received which he’d wanted her and her girls to move, and they’d ended up disagreeing again and getting busy. His chain had somehow gotten caught on her favourite thin little gold necklace in the position they were in and they’d both moved at the same time to try and rectify it from the angles they were at but had only made it worse and he’d pulled up, too roughly, snapping it but continuing to fuck into her.

When they’d finished up, she seemed upset by it breaking, though she tried to cover it up, saying it was only a possession. He told her he’d get it fixed but she shook her head, no she’d said, the chain had been snapped in two places and it probably wouldn’t mend well as it was so fine. But he’d taken it off her anyway, took it to a guy his abuela had known. 

The guy was old school, fixed it properly with real gold that matched the links and then he made a bracelet to match it, with a small gold bar which he’d engraved, writing Elizabeth in the tiniest letters on one side and he’d put a small sapphire on the other. The sapphire was placed in a miniature microphone the size of a pinhead and no-one but the guy and Rio knew about it. 

Rio had picked the pieces up two days ago but hadn’t seen her since to give them to her.

‘Yeh, fixed it an’ got a little extra something for you.’

Beth looked at the gold closely, seeing the smaller bar. She gently pulled it out of the tissue paper, turning it in her hand, seeing how dainty it was, seeing the precious blue stone on the bar and her name. She looked at him then, her eyes wider.

‘It’s beautiful.’

He just nodded, he knew she would liked it. 

‘But why?’

He said nothing, he never explained anything so she swallowed. ‘Could you help me put it on?’

He did, leaning forward over her, helping her fasten both the necklace clasp after she’d removed the necklace she’d taken to wearing and then fastening the clasp on the bracelet. She lifted her arm up admiring the delicate gold on her wrist and he admired it on her. She had small hands and wrists, like a doll and it contrasted with the voluptuousness of her body. The chain worked on her. 

She looked at him then, not sure what to say. This was, this was something else, giving her a gift, though it was deceptively small, she felt there was so much more to it. It was a one off gift, designed to match her necklace because he’d broken something of hers, or maybe because he was spending so much time at hers now, letting her look after him before he left her during the day or in the morning. Maybe this was his way of showing he wanted to take care of her too, and the thought that went behind it the bracelet, the effort that went into it, none of that was small. It was, and it meant, something else, something more. 

Rio could see all these thoughts running through her head as she looked up at him. He grinned at her. They’d not discussed what they were doing, they never had, everything was a dance between them. But he still liked to throw something new into the works every now and then to see what would happen. How she would take it. And he wasn't going to explain. It was in his best interest to know what was going on with her and he was actually a thoughtful gift giver, not that she would necessarily agree with him on that one cos she shot him.

However, she moved quickly when her mind was made up on her next course of action and she put her hands around his neck, pulling him down to her, kissing him deeply but slowly, taking her time with it, letting her tongue feel his, feel around his mouth. They kissed till he laughed and clambered on top of her on the couch, caging her in and pushing her deeper back into it as she returned the laugh into his mouth continuing their kiss.

He sat, straddling her legs as they made out, Beth’s hands still around his neck when she pulled back from him, smiling. ‘You know the only thing with you being so fit and lean is that your butt is actually kinda bony.’

‘What you talkin’ ‘bout woman, my ass is perfect.’

Beth laughed. ‘Your bony ass is going to bruise my thighs.’

Rio wriggled his ass on her legs a bit, making Beth squirm and squeal at him, but he eventually clambered off her lap, holding his hand out to her, to pull her up. She smiled and switched the TV off, put her patchwork in her hamper and then she let Rio help her turn off all the lights as they went into her bedroom. 

They slowly undressed each other, kissing and stroking the skin they revealed as they went. It was slow and sensual, he took his time inside her, working them both so she was all relaxed and wet, her body welcoming him as he penetrated her deeply, and she came so intensely on his cock that she sobbed as her orgasm clenches drew an equally long and intense orgasm out of him. 

Rio woke when it was still dark out, but it was morning, he could hear some birdsong. He looked at the woman he’d wrapped himself around in his afterglow, feeling the soft smoothness of her curved flesh warmed by his and he couldn't help but smile.

He liked their growing intimacies, he liked that she knew how he liked his eggs, and he knew her favourite brand of snacks and so would occasionally bring a small bag of chips in his hoodie pockets for her to their meetings, but most of all, he liked being able to wake up in her bed with her. He liked her. He hated her. He respected her. He was scathing of her. He understood her. He, well, he was happy to keep her closer, closer than close. She stirred a little so he pressed himself tighter against her, one arm squeezed around her as his hand nestled in over her heart, in-between her breasts. She sleep sighed, all contented and cocooned by him, and her hand moved up to his, wrapping her fingers around his, whilst his palm was still pressed firmly over her beating heart.

He smiled into her neck, laying a gentle kiss there. She was without doubt, his very favourite enemy.


	2. No ifs, no buts, no second bests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So after updating this one-off fic, somehow another chapter appeared with Beth's POV...

She didn’t hear him come in, she just turned round from the colourful schedule she had printed out and spread on the workstation and there he was, his eyes hot at her back, making her jump and clutch at her heart.

‘Thought you’d be here.’ He spoke in his low husky drawl.

‘What? Wh-what are you doing here? Is Marcus with you?’ She asked, looking behind him quickly. ‘And I thought I’d double locked the door.’ 

He smirked slightly. ‘You did but it don’t keep me out when I got both keys an’ codes. An’ no Marcus, poor kids temperature went up again. He’s gotta big day ahead with all his cousins so I agreed with Rhea that she take him and put him to bed early. Kid didn’t even protest, he went to sleep real quick.’

Beth’s brow furrowed in concern. ‘Again? Oh, poor Marcus. Did you manage to get that different fever syrup the other night?’

Marcus’ temperature had spiked earlier in the week and Rio had been worried. ‘Yeh, Rhea wanted to stick to what we always used, but she agreed to try it out tonight.’

Beth nodded. ‘Will she be okay on her own with him tonight?’

Rhea had decided to cut Beth out of her life since Marcus’ party. Beth could understand but hand on heart, it had hurt her, she missed her new friends company and particular outlook on life. But Rio, well... Rhea had spoken to Beth briefly in the park when she saw her a few days after the party. She’d ignored Beth’s messages and yet face to face, she was direct, telling Beth she would remain in her life as a friend, if Beth gave Rio up. 

It had made Beth laugh bitterly, recalling Dean’s ultimatum, everyone seemed to want her to stay away from Rio but it wasn't that simple. And it wasn’t about to happen anytime soon. Rhea had looked at Beth pityingly, shrugged at Beth’s non-answer, called Marcus over and walked away. 

How could Beth explain that she was forever stupidly indebted to him from a work perspective, she would owe him for life for what she did and she knew it. She didn’t shy away from that, she owned it because she deserved to pay for it. He had been a dick, twisted and sick for what he did, for handing her the gun she didn’t want to use but in some weird way it must have also made the educator in him proud. It must have made him re-evaluate her because she’d done what he'd been grooming her to do. Just not how he’d expected. She wasn’t his puppet after all. The whole situation was so twisted. 

However, despite the awful ugliness, she did actually like his company. She actually liked him. Hated him too but as they sought each other out more and more privately, she was back to liking him far more than she hated him. 

The thing between them, the push and pull, it had kept her going. When she thought he was dead, she hid behind her best front for everyone, set her business up, worked and hustled so hard between legal and illegal, not allowing herself to stop because if she stopped she’d have to face the fact that inside, a part of her died with him. She ached for him. She had ached for him and had hated herself for it. The guilt and the longing was immense. 

But he hadn’t died. He had survived. And here he now was standing in-front of her, with his usual smirk on. 

‘We been co-parenting for years Elizabeth, she can handle a fever on her own, but she ain’t on her own, her Mama’s there an’ we all at her brothers tomorrow.’

‘For the lunch?’

Rio and Rhea had tried to share the big occasions together and this year Rhea’s brother was holding Christmas. Although Rio admitted he was not exactly popular in Rhea’s immediate family, he was welcome at the table as he was Marcus’ dad and a considerate uncle. 

‘Yeh.’ Rio tilted his head to one side. ‘You still undecided ‘bout headin’ to your sisters ex?’

Annie had agreed to spend the day with Nancy and Dakota for Sadie. She’d extended the invite to Beth, as Beth had hosted a huge Thanksgiving buffet for everyone, but Beth didn’t feel comfortable with it. She didn’t exactly know Nancy and wasn’t sure she wanted to now she was divorced from Greg. 

It was also her first Christmas without the kids as they were with Dean’s family. The thought of spending Christmas on her own was actually quite, liberating. 

She had kind of decided to take most of the day off. Try to sleep in. Wear pyjamas all day. Watch a movie with a face pack on whilst sipping a generous measure of bourbon. Work on her quilt. Maybe paint her nails. Or start baking the cookies and cheese bites for the kids crafting workshop they were holding on the morning of 27 December. Ruby’s clan were all going to be there as Ruby and her were holding the event with Annie. Sadie was attending too, as were all of Beth’s kids as Dean was returning them back in the afternoon on 26 December.

Beth shrugged. ‘I decided to stay home.’

‘Alone?’ 

She nodded and he took a step closer to her. 

‘You sure that’s a good idea? You not always too good when your kids are gone.’

Beth rolled her eyes a little at him. ‘I’ve had practise, I’m fine on my own, because now Dean always brings the kids back.’

‘Ah.’ Rio looked to the side, he looked deep in thought as he turned back to her. ‘So I guess you don’t need no company then.’

‘What company?’

Rio didn’t directly answer her. ‘Why you not at home right now?’

‘The self-employed never stop working Rio.’

He huffed out a laugh at that. ’Yeh, don’t I know it.’

‘What did you have in mind? I mean, for company?’

‘It’s after 8 in the evening on Christmas Eve, think you can clock off now?’

Beth gave him a small smile. ‘Yes.’

‘You have food at yours?’

‘Food for a sandwich, but you don’t eat sandwiches, right?’

He laughed at her. ‘No, I don’t eat sandwiches. I got some beef bourguignon at mine, an’ par-boiled potatoes to mash. Made it with Marcus the other day, expanding the kids tastes an’ what not. It’s gotta be eaten soon.’

He said it so smoothly Beth almost didn't get the meaning. He was inviting her to his? For a dinner he had made? Was she going to spend the night?

She swallowed before replying, trying to keep her voice steady but she was aware it was higher pitched than normal. ‘Well, if it needs to be eaten soon...’

He nodded at her.

‘Okay, um, it’ll just take me 5 minutes to lock up, if you can wait?’

He smiled at her. ‘I’ll help you.’

And he did and then she followed his car, fluffing her hair at the first set of traffic lights, applying blush and lipstick to look more presentable at the two next sets, not quite believing that she was going to Rio’s home. That Rio was cooking for her on Christmas eve. That Rio could cook? That he had casually not exactly invited her but still kind of invited her to go to his on Christmas eve? Or was it just dinner? Her brain couldn’t compute any if it.

She followed him, pulling into a small parking lot at the side of a red brick industrial looking building downtown and got out of her car. He came up to her, taking her hand once she’d clicked the door locks on her car keys and they walked around to the entranceway of the building. Rio used a pass to get in the first door, walking them into a nondescript entranceway, ignoring the old fashioned small and open ironwork lift, he made her walk up the three flights of stairs to his floor, the top floor, where he had to punch in a code to access the hallway. 

Beth could only see one other door on the floor when she quickly looked behind her, before stepping into his apartment as he held the door open for her, following her in and commanding the lights to turn on as he did. She would have rolled her eyes at that because of course he would have a voice command light system (did he not get power failures here? They didn’t affect him, he told her later, he’d had a generator installed and kept away from others eyes) but as soon as the door was shut he grabbed her and span her around and kissed her, quite literally taking her breath away as he held her close against him.

They both let themselves be consumed by the kiss and full body alignment having not touched in the last three days, but he eventually pulled back, smiling at her. ‘So, welcome to my apartment.’

Beth smiled but didn't speak, still a little breathless, still a little stunned at being in his home because he wanted her there and she followed him into the kitchen area of the open space apartment. 

She let her eyes wonder around, it was similar to his last place, but some of the exposed brickwork had been painted white, there were industrial lights hanging from the ceiling, there was a mezzanine floor with two desks and what appeared to be lots of small cacti type plants on the floor. What notably caught her eyes were the glass window pane walls held together with black iron work creating, what Beth realised, were two bedrooms in opposite corners of the furthest wall of the apartment. There were discreet muslim curtains hanging in the corners of the glass walls, so the rooms could be private but they were pulled back now, in keeping with the open plan look of the apartment.

Beth turned back to Rio who was looking at her assessing his space.

‘Yeh, we have bedrooms now. Kids growing up a little an’ needed a bit more space to make his own.’

Beth nodded, not commenting on the fact that it actually gave them both a little more privacy. 

Whilst Rio reheated the stew on the stove and made the mashed potatoes with extra butter, Beth laid his hipster dining table for them. His cutlery was sleek and his crockery was not the finest bone china but rustic, made by hand so that each piece was similar but unique. Rio opened some Pinot Noir for them, Beth already knew he didn’t like wine that was too tannin heavy, and at some point he’d pressed something on his phone as music from a local independent radio played out of invisible speakers. 

When they sat to eat, Beth groaned at the first mouthful and forgot any nervousness she’d had being there because Rio was an excellent cook. She told him, not able to hide her pleasure, knowing that his head would expand to an even greater size but she had to give credit where it was due. He’d glowed a little at the compliment and she wondered momentarily if she had that glow when he praised her. It felt good to see it on him, did it feel good to him when he praised her?

She shook the thought off as she helped him clear the plates, washing pans and loading the dishwasher before tidying the kitchen till it met Rio’s high grade OCD immaculate standard. He then walked her to the couch, taking their wine glasses with him. They made out like teenagers until Rio got frustrated with all their clothes and the lack of space to press against her, so he pulled her impatiently to his bedroom.

Beth couldn't help but grin at his enthusiasm as she was dragged into his corner bedroom. Sex with Rio was always deeply satisfying, different, hot, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but whatever it ended up being, it always turned her on. It wasn't that her sex life with Dean had been totally atrocious, Dean simply hadn't always managed to turn her on pre-during-or-post sex because their dynamic, their relationship had never been so all consuming. Beth had never felt that deep physical longing, that overwhelming desire and a bright hot need for Dean that she continuously felt for Rio. Her business dealings with Rio brought her nothing but frustration, yet sex with Rio brought her such intense pleasure. It was the cherry on the top of all their fuelled interactions. It was fulfilment of a need just seemed grow more hungry each time they sated it. 

She shrieked when he pushed her back onto his bed, lifting her legs up so he could take her boots off. ‘Wait, don’t I get dessert?’

He spoke huskily at her. ‘Elizabeth, you are the dessert.’

And she had laughed at the terrible cheesiness of the line which had made him grin at her, but she’d stopped laughing once he started leaving a love bite trail up her inner thighs, and she gasped when his face pressed against her and his tongue began tracing a pattern on her clit and it didn’t take long for her to cry out his name when his fingers and tongue expertly worked an orgasm out of her. 

And then later, when he’d been inside her for such a long time, when they were both glowing with each others sweat, she’d nearly sobbed when he changed their position again, for the fifth time. It was like he was making up for the months he’d been with her but not on his bed or maybe he’d just wanted to prolong their pleasure. 

He made her sit up on her knees as he pressed in behind her, making her lean forward slightly to hold his iron bed headboard with one hand, bringing her other hand to feel where they were joined, to feel him fuck her before he moved her fingers so that she was touching herself. She knew he wanted to bring that extra pressure on her clit as he fucked into her fiercely from behind, she knew he wanted her to come again as his own hands had moved to hold a vice-like grip on her hips, ready to release into her once she had taken her pleasure and he’d felt it on his cock. 

And so she did as he wanted, coming hard, allowing him to release inside her. Totally fucked out, they stayed where they were until staying upright was too much and they untangled, collapsing down onto their backs on his bed, letting their heart rates calm.

As she was coming down from her sex haze, Beth registered that the bed was a firm and supportive, that Rio had the softest and clearly the highest thread count cotton sheets she’d felt before and that his cushions were like clouds. She wondered if she could just stay there on his bed, feeling blissed out like this for the rest of time. She wondered if she was the only one who’d been on this bed because he’d been so eager to try out so many positions on it. She wondered why he’d brought her here on Christmas Eve. 

She then wondered if any of it meant anything.

Two weeks beforehand she’d backed out of a deal with an old associate of his. The deal would have been big, using the workshop as a place to store and move pills and other more valuable goods, like diamonds that were being smuggled into the country mixed up in the gemstone craft supplies. Only at some point in the talks the generic prescription pills had changed to harder drugs, drugs that Beth did not want to have anything to do with yet alone have passing through the back of the workshop. Plus, Beth did not have a good instinct about the man Rio said he’d worked with. 

Everything about him felt wrong to her despite the fact that others in the supply chain were on board with the deal. 

Beth had pulled out in the end with little notice and the associate had turned up to intimidate her the next night, when she had been caught alone and working late. She had tried to be calm with the guy but after 20 minutes she was both starting to lose her temper and get scared as he made it clear that in his opinion a deal was a deal, that there was no backing out and what could Beth do about it? And then Rio had appeared out of the blue, like her own personal guardian angel, and his presence alone made his old associate back off. When the associate left with a reminder from Rio to not come back, Beth had then to explain to a pissed off looking Rio how the guy knew where to turn up to at all. 

He’d been angry at her, telling her to get her act together, to not give out the address for the workshop until a deal was done. To use an alias, to not give herself away so easily, he told her to carry a gun. Told her that she needed to cover herself and not be so foolish. That she couldn’t trust anyone. 

She’d been upset and shouted back at him, but she stopped mid-shout, trying to control herself from lashing out at him because she knew he was right. He was right again and he’d had to sort her mess out. Again. It felt like she was back where she started and she had to bite her tongue hard to stop herself from crying. She closed her eyes, took a breath and said she knew he was right. That she had fucked up. 

He’d sighed at her, pissed off at being shouted at but she was getting better at controlling her temper, and she was upset because she felt vulnerable. She knew he saw it. He stayed with her to lock up. Followed her home. Gave her a bourbon. Pulled her into his arms. Took his time with her in bed.

It turned out he wasn’t angry at her backing out of the deal. Far from it, in fact, later that night just before she fell asleep in his arms, in her bed, after they’d both come but before he’d left to relieve his sitter, he kissed her below her ear and whispered that she’d done the right thing. Backing out of a deal because her raw instincts told her to was a great business asset. Instincts were everything. Listening to them was key.

Beth realised again that she would never work Rio out. 

She was so lost in her thoughts as she lay in sex bliss that she didn’t register Rio getting out of bed, and only realised he’d gone and come back again when he gently placed a warm washcloth in-between her legs. She looked at him as he tenderly cleaned her up and she had to swallow when his eyes caught hers, his expression warm and soft. 

Dean had never been so tender nor so caring to her in moments like this. Dean had also never been so rough with her, because sometimes things would get so heated with her and Rio and he would fuck her so hard that even though she’d be dripping wet for him, encouraging him, pulling him deeper into her, needing to feel him as hard as he could give it to her, she would ache for days after. But the ache would make her think of him and would heat her again. 

And after those sessions he would always take care of her tenderly, cleaning between her legs, rubbing her back, kissing her gently, soothing her. Telling her he could still feel her squeezing him. Dropping casually it into their conversation once, after he’d brought her a coffee from his favourite deli when they met in the park with their kids, that his thighs and groin ached from fucking her so long and hard the day before. She’d looked at him wide eyed and he smirked, asking her if she knew the magic that she held between her thighs because working for it sometimes made him ache. Just like he ached for her when he didn’t get to see her. 

Beth had blushed at him but she’d also glowed from it. She’d swallowed and told him he’d made her ache too, sometimes she had ached for days deep inside after being with him. He frown-smiled at her, apologising for hurting her but she shook her head at him and he’d quickly closed this distance on the bench between them, pulling her close to kiss her briefly despite them being out in public with their kids running around in-front of them in the park. 

It made Beth stutter and he laughed, pulling away from her, sitting back on the bench, putting distance between them again so no one would know.

But the realisation that he made her feel cared for was, well it was new. 

Because it meant more than her recognised feelings, the ones she accepted, like the intoxicating heat of making money through crime and not getting caught, or from the passionate electricity of the intense sex and chemistry they shared, or because his praise and assumption that she could do anything and boss it made her feel so confident. She realised that when she was with him and after she had left him, she felt seen, listened to and cared for.

It was something she was still not sure about, something she didn’t entirely trust because he was not trustworthy. He told her to trust nothing. Which meant him. She should not trust him. So this thing between them was what it was but at moments like this, when they were alone and so connected, she felt his tenderness and it made everything in her body and soul ache for him. 

And she didn’t know how to deal with it. She didn’t know what to do with it. 

She fell asleep soon after he’d cleaned her up, he curled around her back, placing gentle kisses her shoulder and neck, whispering goodnight into her ear and though she knew she should get up and take her make up off, her eyelids had closed as his arms felt so good around her and his bed underneath her body was so supportively comfortable and his sheets so cozy. 

Before she knew it, she was slowly opening her eyes and it was morning.

Christmas morning. And Beth was lying in bed, in Rio’s bed, in Rio’s apartment, with his old fashioned black industrial heaters hissing and snow gently falling on his window panes and his body snuggled up next to hers. And Beth realised that though she would have loved beyond anything to wake up to her kids and Rio would no doubt would have loved to wake up to Marcus’ exuberance, waking up with Rio on this day was the very best alternative.

She turned around to him, to watch him and she had to bite her lip. He was so very handsome, so perfect with skin that glowed with health, thick set eyebrows that occasionally had to be smoothed, his few days old stubble shadow that her skin was used to and his freaking beautiful tattoo just made him even more interesting to look at. She’d never thought she would be one to admire such a big and boldly placed tattoo, but on him, it just worked. Everything just worked on him. She wondered briefly if she would ever get bored of looking at him but she knew the answer was no. 

‘See something you like?’ Rio’s voice was gruff, his eyes were still closed and his body hadn’t moved to show he was awake. 

‘Yes. A lot, actually.’ Beth then bit her lip, she was never normally this bold. 

‘Is that so?’ He opened his eyes, lazily looking at her and she nodded at him. 

He slightly smirked, still sleep dazed but he reached out and pulled her closer to him, appraising her before leaning in, slowly, gently pressing his lips against hers.

Beth sighed and moved her hands to caress his stubble encased jaw, smoothing her hand down his neck, looking into his eyes as she leant forward to kiss him again, pressing a little harder, opening his mouth with hers, letting their kiss get deeper and more heated as he pressed her onto her back, rolling against her, his cock pushing hard against her thigh as she moaned into his mouth, rounding her upper back further into the bed as she arched her hips against his. 

But just as he moved his hand to make sure she was wet for him, his phone went off with a unique ring tone, one she’d not heard play out before. He groaned into her mouth and pulled back, looking at her. ‘I have to get that, it’ll be Marcus.’

Beth blinked before nodding. ‘Yes, yes of course. I, I should call my kids.’

He pulled himself off her, leaning across to his bedside table, grabbing his phone and answering it with a warm ‘Hey’ as he looked over at Beth who had stretched out next to him. When she realised he was just staring at her exposed chest she narrowed her eyes at him and turned on her side to get up, looking on the floor for her sweater and panties that he’d thrown down there in his haste to get her naked and on his bed. 

She found them both and pulled them on, feeling his eyes on her as he spoke softly to his son and she walked back into the open space of his apartment looking for her purse. She went to his bathroom to freshen up, trying to sort out her bed-head hair and swipe away yesterdays mascara before she face-timed her kids sitting by the most nondescript wall she could find. She ended the call after a few minutes when Dean started hovering in the background, promising she’d call them after their lunch.

She sent Ruby and Annie messages before standing up again and heading back into Rio’s bedroom. He’d cleared up their clothes, laying her socks and pants out on one side of chair in the corner of his room and clean and smart looking clothes for him on the other side. He was laid back in his bed, the comforter pulled up to his waist whilst he was still talking, quietly. He had paused when she walked in the room, smiling at her, and he wound his call up, hanging up and putting his phone on the bedside table.

‘Hey.’ She stood on his doorway, tugging her sweater down a little.

‘Hey.’ He patted the space next to him and she walked over, climbing onto the bed.  
‘Kids good?’

Beth smiled. ‘Yeh, super excited and being super spoilt beyond Dean’s pay-grade but that’s not my really my concern anymore. What about Marcus?’

‘Kids the same. Spoilt by his Mom an’ Abuela, but Rhea’s sensible. He’s looking forward to the chaos of lunch.’ He reached for her hand, taking her phone from it and putting it next to his, before tugging at the bottom of her sweater. ‘Now, I think we were in the middle of somethin’ before we were interrupted.’

Beth shrieked as he quickly pulled her sweater up and off her, whilst simultaneously pushing her onto her back, so he could move on top of her. He tugged her panties down her legs before crawling back up her body to kiss her. Beth gasped into his mouth, wrapping her arms around his back, pulling him close, letting the spark from his kiss heat her, pool down low, as his body moved against hers. 

He pulled away slightly, pulling his lips off hers. ‘I gotta start getting ready at 10 or so, an’ so I got an hour to fully fuck you out an’ make you come so hard you can’t move or think or do anythin’ but spend the mornin’ in my bed sleeping so that tonight, when I get in it, all I’ll smell is you.’

Beth swallowed at Rio’s words and the intense look in his eyes, and she pulled his face back to hers, pulling his lips onto hers, kissing him deeply and wildly before he leant back, inching down her body, kissing and sucking, leaving his marks on her skin. He pulled her legs up, setting her thighs against his shoulders when he reached his intended destination. He spent time on feeling her with his tongue, pulling back a couple of times to tell her how fucking tasty she was, how he loved her scent, how he loved burying his face in her, how hard it got him, before he upped the pace and pressure of his ministrations. Beth gave into the sensations overwhelming her, unravelling for him with a cry, feeling his tongue pressing on her clit and his fingers rubbing that spot inside her.

She couldn’t speak as he pulled back, wiping her come off his face with his hand, before moving slowly back up her body. He smiled at her when they were level, his mouth falling to hers and she could taste herself as her tongue wrapped around his.

‘You feeling good, Elizabeth?’ He asked pulling his face back a little as pressed his hard cock against her inner thigh.

‘Yes.’ She surged up to kiss him not needing to elaborate, moving her lips back slightly, her breath still stuttering from her high as she moved her hand to his cock, tightening her fingers around his length and giving him a stroke. ‘I want you to feel good too.’

Rio sighed, smiling at her, enjoying her hand on him. ‘Yeh?’

Beth nodded, tightening her fist.

‘Feeling you feels good Elizabeth.’ He pulled at her hand, so he could roll them, dragging her on top of him. ‘But I wanna watch ya make ya’self come apart on me.’

Beth took a breath in, repositioning herself, feeling for him again so to line up on him, hold his long, thick, hardness in place as she teased them both by rubbing her wetness on his tip, watching his face when she finally inched herself down, sinking on him, watching his eyes widen, watching as he bit his plump lower lip. She felt his fingers grip firm on her hips, listening out for his little sighs as she sank down deeper on him. 

If feeling his cock inside her didn’t do it for her, just looking at him, at his reaction to her would do it. He was hot. He really was the finest man she had ever seen. And she almost had to laugh at the thought that this gorgeous man, this finely built and gifted with a perfect and generous cock man was the one she got to ride on a regular basis. That this wonderful specimen always did his utmost to find and hit that spot that he knew did it for her because he loved watching her unravel on him. 

She figured it was probably going to the best adults only Christmas she would ever have before he lifted his hips again as she stopped thinking much of anything other than feeling him everywhere inside her, on seeing only him, on tasting him. He surged up, sitting so she was in his lap, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as he kissed her deeply, his hands caressing her breasts before they were on her hips again and he was lifting her up and down on him, setting a faster pace, pushing into her, making her cry out. Smiling, he went back down on his back again, letting her ride him out, letting her chase the orgasm they both felt was coming, as one of his hands cupped her breast, the thumb flickering over her nipple and his other hand pulled at the hair at the nape of her neck. 

She worked herself on him, squeezing him whilst trying to hold off, prolong her pleasure but everything felt too good and she came on him, hard, gasping as her hands pressed into his chest. He made her feel everything so intensely, feel him so intensely as she pulsated around him. When she could focus a little more to look at him clearly, he was staring up at her with what Beth would describe at any other time as awe, as reverence. She felt it in his gaze, felt it everywhere and it made her breathe out.

He moved them then, lifting her off him, moving her to her back, so he could get between her legs again, he lifted her right leg up slowly, positioning it close to her armpit, waiting for a few moments to pass to make sure she was comfortable, before he kissed her deeply, stroking her face with his hand, rolling his hips against hers, letting his cock seek her entrance out, finding her centre and sinking into her unaided. They both sighed at his entry and Beth clung onto his back as he slowly built a rhythm, careful with her sensitive walls and she arched up to kiss him, feeling every single stroke inside her. 

When his pace picked up, Beth moved one of her hands, letting her fingertips trace the scars on his chest and he made a noise in his throat, looking down at her with his dark eyes. Beth surged up then, latching her lips onto his chest, sucking at the scars, knowing she was going to leave marks on and around them. Low guttural noises of pleasure escaped from Rio’s mouth before he pulled her head back, kissing her deeply as he moved the angle of his hips, hitting that spot inside her over and over, she tried to speak out, to tell him to focus on him, not to do that, that she had come twice already and it was too much but he wouldn’t let her move, didn’t stop his kiss or let up with the pumping in and out of her on that spot and it almost got too much and she writhed against him and... and...

Beth blissed out for a while.

She was vaguely aware of him saying her name low and long with a groan as he pushed deep inside her, his cock completely filling her as he spilled into her, she was vaguely aware of his weight on top of her as he collapsed, post orgasm loose limbed on her. She was vaguely aware of him kissing her softly and stroking her face, saying something which sounded like. ‘You really felt that one deep, didn’t you?’ And she may have nodded or sighed in response to him but she needed to sleep again as that’s all she was truly capable of doing. She closed her eyes as he enfolded her in his arms, pulling her back against his chest as he whispered ‘Merry Christmas’ into her ear and she, still not able to function properly at all, had taken the hand that was caressing her stomach, pressing it against her heart instead.

She awoke some time later, all wrapped up in his comforter which smelt of him, with the light coming through his windows and a strangely comfortable silence all around. The city was never truly silent, but today, on Christmas, it was suburbia quiet. She turned over, stretching out before sitting up, reaching for her phone on his bedside table. 

It was just after 12 o’clock which made Beth blush, how long had she been passed out for? There were 3 messages from Rio, 4 from Annie, 2 from Ruby and a missed call from Dean. She sighed at the call from Dean but returned it, immediately, to find out that the crisis had been diverted so she said she’d speak to the kids later.

She read Rio’s messages, he teased her saying he’d try to wake her up but she was so sexed out that he couldn’t rouse her. That he’d set up coffee in the stove pot, she just had to turn the gas on and muesli was on the counter, with berries and yoghurt in the refrigerator. He’d left a towel on the chair for her and he’d left her a sweater that would accommodate her chest cos he’d put her own sweater and panties in with his wash. Beth blushed at that. 

He told her to not hurry out. He told her he’d call her later.

Being allowed in his place felt different, because now she could snoop as he’d let her in, but even though she was there alone, she had no desire to snoop. If he wanted to show her something, he could. She got up, a bit wobbly on her feet, realising she needed coffee and food as their sex had zapped all her energy, so she wrapped herself up in the large and fluffy towel he’d left out for her and she padded into the kitchen. She made herself breakfast from his fancy muesli and made the coffee on his designer stove. She sighed when she sipped her coffee, it was delicious and rich, hipster cafe quality. 

On a whim, she took a photo of her breakfast and sent it to him with a ‘Thank YOU!’ and then she sat, ate and drank as she flicked through an architects journal she found in the discrete magazine rack at the end of the breakfast bar. The rack also held a comic book for Marcus which made her heart expand a little. 

Rio responded to her message with a smiley face, telling her to enjoy it.

She took a shower after that and maybe stayed there for longer than necessary but it was a waterfall shower with incredible pressure and Rio’s mineral salt shower gel smelt so good that maybe she lathered up twice. His bathroom counter was mostly clear but he’d left out a neutral but very expensive looking moisturiser in a glass jar which she used on her face and then she dressed in her jeans without panties, her bra, his sweater, that smelt clean and fresh, like him and then she pulled on socks he’d left out before she made his bed, fluffing out the comforter.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and decided on another whim to take a picture and send it to him. Slightly embarrassed at herself, she then quickly left his place, making sure the door was shut properly, taking a picture of it to send to him to replace the last one and she headed home, singing along to the radio the whole way. 

Her day at home passed quickly, she changed all her kids bedding and her own, doing 4 loads of laundry in-between making cookies and cheese bites for the workshop, face-timing her kids and giggling at Annie who called her from Nancy’s guest restroom, giving Beth a rundown on the healthiest Christmas meal she had ever eaten. 

When it got to 7, Beth allowed herself to sit and slowly drink a bourbon, whilst eating grilled cheese with a bag of chips on the side. She topped up her bourbon and took herself to the couch and put the ‘The Grinch’ on whilst pulling out her patchwork. Rio hadn’t messaged back and she knew he was with his son and Rhea’s family after all, but she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have sent him the photos. What if Rhea or Marcus had seen them?

Beth knocked back her bourbon at the thought and looked at her empty glass, wondering if she should risk having another whilst crafting and then her mind turned to all she had to do before her kids got back. She decided to work on her quilt more, and stayed sat for the next 2 hours, slowly sipping another bourbon when her phone buzzed with a FaceTime from Rio. Her first FaceTime from him. She bit her lip, before answering.

‘Yo, Mama.’

Beth smiled at him, he was lying back on his pillows on his bed, in a navy sweater. He looked good. ‘Merry Christmas! How was your day and how is Marcus?’

Rio smiled. ‘He’s feeling better, had a long day with all his cousins, eating all the food, unwrappin’ all his presents. Kid was wired when I got him home, took him a while to settle him down, bath him. Rhea sent thanks to you.’

Beth swallowed. ‘Oh? What for?’

‘The medicine recommendation, it worked a treat. She figured it was you.’

‘Oh.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment. ‘I hope that was okay.’

He smiled at her. ‘Yeh, it’s okay. Rhea’s family always do way too much sweet food which is why the kid was wired. What ‘bout you? You manage ya’self after you left mine? You look good in my sweater.’

Her cheeks coloured and she smiled back, shyly. ‘I kept myself busy.’

‘You eat?’

‘Grilled cheese.’

‘You need to eat better than that Elizabeth.’

‘It’s better than eating my way through a box of chocolates besides, I ate really well last night and this morning.’

‘Oh, you did, did you?’

‘Yes, thank you. And your muesli is the fanciest I have ever eaten.’

‘Once you have the best you can’t go back.’

Beth opened her mouth to speak but didn’t, there was so many meanings to Rio’s statements.

‘So I gotta a call from someone I know this afternoon, had to hide in the bathroom with the faucet on to avoid ears listenin’ out.’

The relaxed feeling from the liquor left her instantly. ‘What happened?’

‘Turns out an associate I had some time ago, someone I heard of again recently, well they were picked up on Christmas Eve, cos they were involved in some whack shit scheme from across the boarder. Apparently they were saying all kinds of crazy things.’

Beth swallowed. So Rio’s associate had been caught and tried to grass on her and maybe Rio, offering one or both of them up. ‘I can only imagine. What was the outcome?’

‘They in trouble, but you know, it’s just them as they’re alone in their stupidity. They have kid too, same age as your Kenny, you’d think they’d be a little more cautious.’

Beth nodded, taking a breath, hearing Rio’s warning about her need to take better care and also relieved that he guy had nothing on her. But she would need to be prepared if the police or FBI came to her. She already knew she would claim she’d met the associate at the workshop as he wanted a party for his kid.

She shrugged. ‘Not everyone thinks things through.’ 

‘No, they don’t. So what you up to now Elizabeth?’

She picked up her patchwork to show him and he smirked. 

‘You never stop workin’ huh, even when restin’, huh?’

‘Nope and you?’

‘I never stop workin’. So you not free to drive over here, warm my bed up with me?’

Beth felt herself blushing again. ‘I’m 3 bourbons in and isn’t Marcus with you?’

Rio laughed. ‘No drivin’ for you then.’ He bit his lip before continuing. ‘Shame though, you could have pancakes for breakfast with me an’ Marcus.’

‘I’d have liked that, and to have some more of your hipster coffee.’

‘Maybe it’s time we do it soon.’

Beth swallowed. ‘Have breakfast together?’

‘Have breakfast with our kids. Marcus ain’t seen me with anyone but he knows you, an’ your kids pretty much know me.’

Beth nodded. ‘They do.’

‘So maybe we should start buildin' up to it. Test the kids out on each other a bit an’ then try it out, individually, by staying at each other places. See how that goes.’

Beth closed her eyes briefly. She had never in a million years imagined this coming from Rio’s mouth and the thing was, she wanted it. She really wanted it. And it scared her. Because what if he was stringing her along? What if all this was him making a fool of her for some slow revenge. But as much as he was a complete mystery, he would never mess about with his son. 

So she opened her eyes and asked. ‘You know, we’ve got a kids craft workshop at 10.30 on the 27th, I can create an extra space for Marcus if, if you don’t have other plans. My kids will be there. Ruby’s too and 10 others who all are good kids. The parents can leave or have coffee and pastries and hang by the soft seating.’

Rio smiled at her, his eyes widening. ‘I’ll see what we can do.’

‘And I’d very much like to be having breakfast at yours with Marcus, so I’ll come over when the opportunity arises again.’

‘Oh don’t worry, I always make sure you come.’

‘Rio!’

He laughed again and sunk a little lower into the bed, taking a deep breath. ‘You know I can smell you here, on my bed. Gonna be looking forward to lying back in the sheets, wrapping myself up in your scent, well, our scent in a little bit.’

‘My sheets always smell of you when you go.’

‘You like my smell, our smell?’ 

Beth nodded.

‘That’s good Mama, cos it does things to me. You do things to me, but you know that, right?’

‘I only really know what you do to me.’

‘It’s mutual Elizabeth.’

Beth nodded but then spoke, because she felt like he deserved to hear it from her too. ‘Yes, it is mutual.’

He beamed at her then and they both shared a moment of silence, of acknowledgement, before he asked her about what movie she’d chosen to watch that night and then told her about something Marcus had done and they both ended up getting ready for bed whilst speaking to one another, with Beth agreeing to spend the night at Rio’s with Marcus there on the 28th. They whispered goodnight to one another and Beth put her phone down, falling asleep thinking of him.

\------

Beth got to the workshop before 9 and let her kids in. She needed to set up with Annie and Ruby and the kids had been given strict instructions to play with their toys in the creche area until they were called over for a pre-event snack. Kenny and Sadie had their iPads so they hooked up to play a game together, feeling far too mature to play with their younger relatives.

Beth had been busy the day before so hadn’t managed to mention to Ruby or Annie that Rio was due to turn up with Marcus. She knew she should before they checked the attendee list. Both Annie and Ruby had thought Beth’s growing well, contentedness for want of a better word, her blossoming happiness, had come from running the workshop. That the satisfaction of running the business, a business she excelled at as well as the side of crime that thrilled and provided much needed additional income was feeding her glow. 

They knew she was not okay with having been a murderer, hell, they were not okay with her being a murderer, despite the circumstances. But when Rio reappeared to gloat and punish Beth, they all felt her sheer relief that she had hadn’t killed him, more than her terror at what he’d do to make her pay. She admitted to Ruby she could take him torturing her, because it was what she knew, because she deserved it for what she did. Ruby had shaken her head at that, as now, they were all his pawns. 

But they had both let Beth deal with Rio, despite their destructive history, because, well, Annie and Ruby were not good at dealing with him. And he behaved a little more reasonably when he just dealt with Beth. He hadn't forgotten that they dumped his pills. 

Besides, Ruby and Annie had wanted out of crime, they’d both been burnt, badly burnt by it, so had Beth but the danger and the being mostly good at it fuelled Beth, it hadn’t fuelled them. It had been a means to an end, coming from a place of desperation. They were grateful for the workshop that Beth had created, they loved being in an environment that provided a space for like minded folks to work, they loved the workshops they ran, but they both knew that it didn’t bring in enough money to keep them all going. They knew crime subsidised their pay-checks. And they weren’t comfortable with it. Or with Rio worming his way back into their worlds through Beth.

Beth was aware of all this, she had decided that should anything happen, she would take the flack, she had told them to deny all knowledge of everything. And she’d kept a certain amount of what she did from them, including sleeping with Rio. 

Only, it was more than that now. It had been for some time. She wasn’t sure what it was at first, not able to label anything they did but since he’d started staying over, it had been different. It was allowing for a tenderness she still wasn’t sure of. But it was here. She’d stayed at his now. He had cooked for her. They were going to start spending time with each others kids.

Beth swallowed as she pulled up the attendee list on the workshop tablet and handed it to Ruby who was the attendance keeper for the day.

‘So, there’s an additional attendee.’

Ruby raised her. ’Oh?’

‘Yes, he’s um, Marcus...’

Ruby interrupted her. ‘Rio’s son, right?’

Beth opened her mouth to speak but found her voice had gone. Ruby shrugged at her.

‘Beth, I know you. Annie might not want to see it, but I’ve seen it. You’re your own person and I want for you to be happy and safe. I also want you to stay alive and out of jail. I can’t say I get what it is that you have going with him, but you seem, well, more alive, more vibrantly you when he’s in your life. But it would be good to see what he’s like with you. Because all I know of him is that he’s a violent gangbanger who we owe and who is always one step ahead. He seems like a total player to me, but neither of you seem to be able to stay away from each other.’

Beth swallowed, not sure what to say to Ruby because Ruby had seen it all after all, but she hadn't pushed Beth for information. She’d waited for Beth to come to her. And Beth had taken her time. ‘I don’t know what it is, or was, or will be, so I haven’t said anything.’

‘So what’s different now?’

‘Nothing and everything. I think I’m done with sneaking around. I think he’s done with sneaking around.’

‘Does this mean you’re an item?’

Beth shrugged. ’I don’t know what it means.’

Ruby looked at Beth, her brown furrowed with concern, a quip on the tip of her tongue but she waited a moment, her expression softening into a more sympathetic look. ‘Well, just see how today goes I guess. You’re an amazing woman, Beth. You deserve to be appreciated and loved and respected. No ifs, no buts, no second bests.’

Beth’s shoulders sagged momentarily, she felt the weight of her friends love and care and she looked back at Ruby smiling, her eyes full of tears. ‘I hate you.’

‘I hate your face.’

They both laughed at each other then before pushing on with their tasks, feeling the warmth of the years of support, trust and love laid out between them.

Most of the attendees showed up a little early for the workshop. Ruby greeted them, letting Annie show the parents to the area they could hang out as Beth took direction of the kids. 

Rio turned up with Marcus, helping him take his coat off and hang it up, letting him rush off to greet Jane. Rio acknowledged Ruby as she looked down marking him as there on the tablet, not exactly keen to start a conversation with him and Annie moved forward but hesitated to approach him. He made a gesture to her, implying he’d be with her shortly as he turned to Beth. 

He walked up to her calmly, standing directly in front of her, toe-to-toe. She looked up at him, a little questioningly, as he leant forward, pausing briefly before his mouth reached hers, waiting for her non-verbal permission before he closed the gap, his hand gently finding her neck as their lips touched. 

It was only brief, a few seconds of their lips pressing together, no more than that, but they both knew that it meant everything. It was public acknowledgement. It was them telling the most important people in their lives that they were together. That they were something. Rio pulled back, letting Beth go, smiling his goofiest smile at her before schooling it off his face as he turned to walk over to Annie.

Beth looked at him walk away, comfortable and casual as he interacted with her sister and she turned back to the children, ready to start the crafting. She took a quick breath, feeling her heart beat, feeling it so full of everything that it might burst open with the joy of it all.

**Author's Note:**

> So... been thinking about this for a little while so came out of my hiatus - how will he come back? I don't know... this is my interpretation but sadly I think the show will make Beth stay with Dean to punish all the viewers who hoped this series was about bad ass female friends and women who empower themselves and then instead got deep in a gangster crush... Though it was totally the shows fault!
> 
> I also had Beth kick Dean out in this fiction because remaining with a lying cheat isn't good for her or her growing business. My issue with the show making her stay with him is that it kinda teaches younger folks and all those out there watching it that women have to put up with crap men, and crap from men. They don't. They really don't. But then... this gangster relationship is hardly healthy either!
> 
> No one's read this but me (& you) so let me know if there are horrific errors (eek!) and if I need to tag anything else. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and all the best for 2020! x


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